Myanmar's military government launches a census seen as a way to gather information about opponents

BANGKOK (AP) — A nationwide census was launched Tuesday by Myanmar’s military government, which says it will be used to compile voter lists for a general election promised for next year, even though much of the country is engulfed in civil war.

Census takers, most of them schoolteachers and local administrative workers, began going door-to-door in the capital, Naypyitaw, accompanied by soldiers and police.

A group that leads the struggle against military rule, the shadow National Unity Government, has advised people to use “caution” in complying with the survey, and pro-democracy guerrillas have warned that those who help collect information will face reprisals. Several were attacked and killed during a similar smaller-scale survey last year.

The military government is widely seen as hoping the polls will legitimize its rule, which began after it seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

In a televised speech in early September, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government, said the census information being gathered from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15 is crucial for compiling voter lists for a general election, but did not specify a date for the polls. He previously pledged to hold an election in 2025.

He also said that people must answer all the questions without anxiety or doubt. The census is widely seen as an effort to gather information to more closely monitor opponents of military rule.

The Ministry of Immigration and Population says more than 42,000 census workers will gather information from more than 13 million households across the country. The survey contains 68 questions on matters such as the number of people living in each home, their education, disabilities, types of houses and access to water, electricity and toilets.

It also includes questions about the occupants' backgrounds, family members who have been away from home and the cause of death of family members, all highly sensitive matters for those who joined the armed resistance or the civil disobedience movement.

A 33-year-old nurse from Yangon, the country’s biggest city, who joined the civil disobedience movement in 2021 said she was worried about her safety because the census contains detailed questions about her job history and the military might use it to punish her. Like others who agreed to be interviewed, she spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared arrest.

A 29-year-old man who took up arms to fight against the army in the southeastern state of Kayin said he had suggested to his family back in his hometown in Mon state that they visit relatives in other townships to avoid the survey.

A 26-year-old gym trainer from Yangon told the AP that he believed the authorities are gathering information not only for the census but also to obtain details of men who are eligible for military service. The military activated conscription in February after it was forced into the defensive against pro-democracy militants as well as ethnic militias seeking autonomy. Independent analysts believe the military government controls much less than half of Myanmar's territory.

It would be difficult to organize an election while the country is at war, and critics see no way for the polls to be free and fair. At a meeting at the end of July, Min Aung Hlaing said the census would be prioritized in areas under the military’s control.

“Whether they are doing it for the fake elections or census, they are doing it to terrorize the people, so don’t collaborate with them in these matters,” said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government. “I would like to say that all those who cooperate with the military council will be punished according to the law because their action is similar to encouraging and cooperating with the military’s terrorist activities.”

The Chin Brotherhood Alliance, which comprises five ethnic Chin militias from the northwestern Chin state, and the Dawei Defense Team, a group from the southern Tanintharyi region, warned in statements last month that they will take strong action against military government personnel who participate in the survey.

Such guerrilla groups, which often target people associated with the military, carried out attacks during a three-week survey to compile voter lists in January 2023, when elections were still expected later that year.

About a dozen people including two police officers and local officials were killed and four military personnel were captured during the attacks.

The U.N. Population Fund, the major collaborator in the previous census in 2014, announced in late 2023 that it was unable to support the 2024 census due to Myanmar's political strife and conflict. The military government said in August this year that China, a close ally, had pledged to give technical support for the census.

The Ministry of Immigration and Population has estimated Myanmar has more than 56 million people,

A census enumerator, foreground right, asks questions to a family in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A census enumerator, left, asks questions to a man in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Census enumerators prepare to collect information from public in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A soldiers provides security to census enumerators who collect information in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Myanmar census enumerators walk toward a neighborhood in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A census enumerator, right, asks questions to a family in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Census enumerators prepare to collect information from public in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends. A sign at an administration office reads " Village maternal and children care association." (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Census enumerators ask questions to family members while collecting information to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Census enumerators ask questions to a family member while collecting information to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

A census enumerator asks questions to a family member while collecting information to compile voter lists for a general election and to analyze population and socioeconomic trends, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hezbollah has denied that Israeli troops have entered Lebanon but says its fighters are ready for a “direct confrontation” if they cross the border.

In its first statement since Israel announced the start of ground operations, Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afifi said reports that Israeli forces had entered Lebanon were “false claims.”

He said Hezbollah fighters are ready “to have direct confrontation with enemy forces that dare to or try to enter Lebanon to inflict casualties among them.”

He also said Hezbollah's firing of medium-range missiles toward central Israel earlier on Tuesday “is only the beginning.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

The Israeli military on Tuesday warned nearly two dozen Lebanese border communities to evacuate, hours after launching what it said was a limited ground incursion against the Hezbollah militant group.

The warning, posted by the Israeli military's Arabic spokesman on the social media platform X, specified around two dozen communities in southern Lebanon and asked people to evacuate north of the Awali River, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the border.

That is farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of a U.N.-declared zone that was intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after they fought to a monthlong stalemate in the 2006 war.

The army had earlier warned people not to travel south of the Litani, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the border. The border region, which has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire.

An Israeli military official said the troops were within walking distance of the border, focused on villages hundreds of meters (yards) from Israel. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said there had been no clashes yet with Hezbollah fighters on the ground.

Israeli artillery units pounded targets in southern Lebanon through the night and the sounds of airstrikes were heard throughout Beirut.

The official said Hezbollah had launched rockets at central Israel, setting off air raid sirens and wounding a man in his 50s. Hezbollah said it fired salvos of a new kind of medium-range missile, called the Fadi 4, at the headquarters of two Israeli intelligence agencies near Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military official said Hezbollah had also launched projectiles at Israeli communities near the border, targeting soldiers without wounding anyone.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s top spokesperson, said troops were conducting “localized ground raids” on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon to ensure that Israeli citizens could return to their homes in the north.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel ignited the war in Gaza. Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes and the conflict has steadily escalated. In recent weeks Israel has unleashed a punishing wave of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several of his top commanders, as well as many civilians.

Hagari said a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 had not been enforced and that southern Lebanon was “swarming with Hezbollah terrorists and weapons.”

That resolution had called for Hezbollah to withdraw from the area between the border and the Litani River and for the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers to patrol the region. Israel says those and other provisions were never enforced. Lebanon has long accused Israel of violating other terms of the resolution.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Lebanese army nor the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, that Israeli forces had crossed the border.

UNIFIL said the military had notified it the day before of its “intention to undertake limited ground incursions into Lebanon” and described it as a “dangerous development.” It noted that any such incursion would also violate the U.N. resolution and urged both sides to de-escalate.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday that his country is willing to deploy the army in support of the resolution if there is a cease-fire. Lebanon’s armed forces would not be able to impose an agreement on the far more powerful Hezbollah.

The military statements indicated that Israel might focus its ground operation on the narrow strip along the border, rather than launching a larger invasion aimed at destroying Hezbollah, as it has done in Gaza against the Palestinian Hamas.

The military official said marching to Beirut, as Israeli forces did during their 1982 invasion of Lebanon, is “not on the table.”

Hezbollah and Hamas are close allies backed by Iran, and each escalation over the past year has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.

The incursion follows weeks of heavy blows by Israel against Hezbollah — including an airstrike that killed its longtime leader Nasrallah — and seeks to step up the pressure on the group. The last time Israel and Hezbollah engaged in ground combat was a monthlong war in 2006.

There was no word on how long the operation would last, but the army said soldiers had been training and preparing for the mission in recent months.

A ground operation marks a new and potentially risky phase of fighting. It also threatens to unleash further devastation on Lebanon. Over 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in Israeli strikes over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.

Hezbollah is a well-trained militia, believed to have tens of thousands of fighters and an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles. The last round of fighting in 2006 ended in a stalemate, and both sides have spent the past two decades preparing for their next showdown.

Recent airstrikes wiping out most of Hezbollah’s top leadership and the explosions of hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah indicate that Israel has infiltrated deep inside the group’s upper echelons.

Hezbollah vowed Monday to keep fighting even after its recent losses. The group’s acting leader, Naim Kassem, said in a televised statement Monday that Hezbollah would be ready for a ground operation. He said commanders killed in recent weeks have already been replaced.

European countries have begun pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon. A British government-chartered flight is due to leave Beirut on Wednesday to evacuate U.K. nationals. The U.K. has also sent 700 troops to a base in th nearby island nation of Cyprus to prepare for a potential evacuation of the estimated 5,000 British citizens in Lebanon.

Mroue reported from Beirut

Israeli soldiers sleep on tanks in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Israeli soldiers pray at a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Israeli shelling hits an area in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

An Israeli Apache helicopter fires a missile towards southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man checks the damaged buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A man documents the damaged buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A man documents the damaged buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Israeli army tanks manoeuvre in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Israeli army tanks manoeuvre in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

A burnt out building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

An Israeli tank manoeuvres in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Israeli shelling hits an area in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, early Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Israeli shelling hit an area in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man documents the damaged buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Israeli soldiers sleep on tanks in a staging area in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)